We too did not get electricty until 1949...the year my brother was born.(NH)
Much of what you have described was my own experience...except the 'spring
box'.
I did not get to wear a fresh dress every day until I was able to iron them
myself. Pressing cloths and the sprinkling bottle were old familiars. The
trick in warm weather was to get to the prepared ironing pile before mildew
set in...then one would need to practice all the old remedies to treat it.
In the early '50s we set our full skirts with sugar water as stiffner (or
potato or pasta water).
When we got 'wired', mother got a wringer washer and we had to learn how to
deal with fancy plastic buttons that were regularly killed if we didn't fold
them in carefully before they slipped between the rollers.
Kathleen
---- Original Message -----
From: "Penny Ladnier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "h-costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 3:43 AM
Subject: [h-cost] Ironing: Revisited
I talked with my Aunt Susie last night about ironing and keeping cotton and
linen cool before ironing. She was born in 1922. I love my sweet aunt...
she is very intelligent and her memory as clear as a bell.
I first asked about when they had electricity in her home. I think this is
important factor after watching another Modern Marvels titled "Wired." I
learned from the show how some rural areas of the U.S. did not have
electricity until 1949, especially the south. Five homes had to be located
witin a given radius to have electric lines drawn to them. My aunt grew up
in Hendersonville, North Carolina in a rural area near a major highway. So
her family's home was wired earlier because of the highway, between
1928-1930. BUT she said this not the norm for the area. Some of the farms
in her county were not wired until the late 1940s.
She remembers an icebox in the house until 1934. She remembers this because
it was a big deal to have an electric refrigerator. When she said this, I
remembered what a big deal in my family growing up was to have color TV, and
when I got married the milestones of having cable TV, microwave, a computer,
and internet. While listening to her, I thought how spoiled we are! Back
to Aunt Susie... she said that they washed clothes on scrub-boards generally
in the creek until they bought an electric washing machine with a ringer.
The washer was kept on the back porch. By the way she talked this event
occurred when she was a teenager. If someone was sick, her mother had a
large cast-iron pot in the yard to boil water and wash the clothes.
IRONING: They had a large cast-iron stove until she moved out after WW2.
The iron was placed on the stove to heat. This was used until she moved
away from home. If there was clothing to be ironed and there wasn't enough
time to do it, the wet clothing was rolled up, and placed in a spring box or
milk box in the creek. This same reason given, as we previously discussed,
to decrease mildew. The clothing was not to go into the frig or icebox.
The spring box / milk box was a new term! I love interviewing older people
to learn from their past!
What is a spring box / milk box?
It is was a large cement box in a spring to catch water in a creek / spring
/ river. Products that would spoil easily such as milk, eggs, and butter
were but into a spring box to keep them cool. My aunt said their creek's
water was cold year round. She also commented that they cooled watermelons
in the spring box. The spring box was large. The part that faced the
creek's downsteam flow had a grate to let the water into the box. The
opposing end of the box had a pipe that allowed water to flow out. From
this point the water was piped up to their home. The spring box's pipe had
a flywheel that so good that it pumped water up to the third story in my
aunt's home. In the shallow end of the spring box the water was generally
4" deep and the deeper end 8". The butter was kept in the shallow end and
the milk in the deep end. She stated that her family survived the
Depression by selling milk, eggs, and butter to the locals.
My aunt said there was a teacher in Georgia who sent her students on
assignment to record the old ways of doing things from the elders in the
area. These were published in a series named Foxfire. My aunt owned two
volumes of Foxfire but Hurricane Katrina took them, along with the rest of
her home. Aunt Susie said the series were all kinds of recipes and methods
of how to do all sorts of things.
Penny Ladnier,
Owner, The Costume Gallery Websites
www.costumegallery.com
www.costumelibrary.com
www.costumeclassroom.com
www.costumeencyclopedia.com
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